Expensify Blog

We’ve been working away at simplifying the expense reporting process for everyone involved.  In that time we’ve added several mobile expense apps, launched out of Beta and in to our 1.0 offering a refined feature set such as greater policy support and a more intuitive QuickBooks export process.  Now, we’ve added videos to literally show everyone how much we’ve simplified the process of expense reporting. Watch how quick it is to create an expense report with Expensify.   But we don’t just stop there!  This set of videos will take you through the entire expense reporting process: importing expense data from your credit card, creating your first expense report and submitting it for approval, approving a submitted report and then sharing it with a bookkeeper, and, how to export the report to QuickBooks.

Import your credit card
Importing your credit card has several advantages. First and foremost: it saves you time, lots of time. As a majority of your expenseable purchases are already on your card, linking your card and importing your purchase history makes creating an expense report a breeze. Our card import process is secure and trusted so you can feel confident importing your expense information. We currently import 94% of all US credit cards, so chances are we’ve got you covered. If you’d like to get more detailed, written information on creating and submitting expense reports, visit the employee’s getting started page.

Create an expense report
Once your credit card expenses have been imported, it’s time to create an expense report. Learn how to create a new report, add individual expenses right from your credit card, check that all eReceipts are attached and then submit it to the person who approves your expenses. After you send your report for approval, we’ll send you an email letting you know as soon as it approved and awaiting reimbursement.

Approve and share an expense report
Has an employee or contractor submitted an expense report to you using Expensify? Wondering how to check over the expense and get a copy to your bookkeeper? Watch this video to find out how to check all of the expenses, approve the expense report and then either reimburse it share it with a bookkeeper so that it can be exported to QuickBooks and reimbursed. For more detailed information on getting started as the person who approves reports, visit the manager’s getting started page.

Export an expense report in to QuickBooks
This video deals with expense reports from the perspective of the bookkeeper. Learn how to access a report that was shared with you, and then export it to QuickBooks. This video shows the process to connect QuickBooks Online to Expensify, including going through the QuickBooks connection interview. After your QuickBooks company has been connected, the video continues with an overview of the QuickBooks export options available. Visit the bookkeepers information page to learn more about the options available to simplify processing and tracking expenses.

All of the videos can also be viewed on our Video How-tos Help page.

Happy Expensifying!

Hello, my name is David Barrett and I’m the CEO of Expensify. We do “expense reports that don’t suck!” (Google “expensify” to read more.) We’re getting crushed under an ever-growing pile of super awesome work, and I need one bright soul to help us dig our way out. I can guarantee you fun, an amazing opportunity to learn, and the siren’s call of distant riches. But only if you are *all* of the following:

• An incredibly hard worker, even when it’s not so fun. There is a ton of work to do, and a lot of it downright sucks. After all — we do the sucky work so our customers won’t need to. I need you to buck up and grind through server logs, user emails, source code, and bug reports, without complaint or supervision, and come back asking for more.
• A cool person to be with. Not a crazy party animal, just someone we can trust, rely upon, hang out with, bounce ideas off of, and generally interact with in a positive way, both personally and professionally. In fact, this is one of the most stringent requirements we have: would you be fun to hang out with day and night on some remote, exotic beach? This isn’t a rhetorical question, either: every year we take the company overseas for a month (on your own dime, sorry) and work incredibly hard while having a ton of fun. We’ve done Thailand, Mexico, India, and Turkey. Where do you want to go this year?
• Super talented, in a general way. We’re going to throw a ton of work at you of every possible sort, and you need that magic skill of being able to figure it out even if you have no idea where to start. On any given day you might bounce between super low-level coding, super high-level technical support, updating our user documentation, inventing/designing/building some new feature, etc. This is not a code monkey job — you’re going to be a full participant in the process, and you need to bring your own unique blend of skills to the table.
• Specifically talented in a programming way. You can instantly visualize solutions to problems big and small. Your code is always clean, well commented, has good nomenclature and indentation. You can switch on a dime between C++, PHP, Bash, Cron, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Dwoo — not because you know them all, but because you’re the sort of person who can just pick it up and figure it out. If you’re this sort of person, you’ll know what I mean. If not, then this position isn’t for you.

And there are a bunch more, but odds are if you got this far, nothing I can do would stop you from applying. That’s a problem because while I know *you* are awesome, it’s actually really hard and time consuming to find you in the midst of the literally hundreds of other applications I get from everyone else. So this is where I’m going to ask my first favor: can you make it *really easy* and obvious how great you are, so I don’t accidentally overlook you?

There are probably many ways to do that. But the easiest way is to help me out by answering the following questions:

1. What’s the URL of your website? If you don’t have one, stop now — please save us both the time by not applying.
2. When did you start programming? Tell me about your first project, what technologies you used, and why you did it.
3. Why do you do it? Why programming instead of all the other exciting careers out there?
4. What was your last/current job, what was/is your total compensation package, and why did you / do you want to leave? Can I have the name and phone number of your last manager? It’s cool if you left on bad terms — I got fired from my last job, after all — just tell me the story.
5. If you were rich, what would you do, and why?
6. Without doing any research or asking any friends, what language is each of the following code fragments, and what’s wrong with each (if anything)?

      .centered { text-align: center; vertical-align: center; }
   
      tail /var/log/syslog | grep warn
   
      char* data[] = { "foo", "bar", 0 };
      int strlenSum = 0;
      do { strlenSum += strlen( *data ); } while( data++ );
   
      The time is <? time() > o'clock.
   
      var a, b = { c: "d" };
      alert( a.c );
   

7. What’s the biggest, coolest project you ever built from top-to-bottom? Not a component; a whole self-sufficient thing.
8. What’s a salary and equity cut that excites you? Like, truly feels “wow, I’m being valued”. What’s the minimum you’d take? Don’t skimp on the question: it’s gnarly, I know. But let’s just get it out in the open, up front.
9. Why do you want to work at Expensify, specifically? Not something general about startups overall; what is it about us in particular that interests you?
10. What’s the catch? Everybody has strings attached — you’ve got something you need to finish first, some big vacation commitment coming up, some particular fear you need addressed or requirement you need satisfied. It’s fine. But what is it?

Please send your answers to dbarrett@expensify.com. If you make an honest attempt at answering the questions above, I promise I’ll respond personally — hopefully in a timely fashion, but definitely sometime.

Thanks. I’m genuinely excited to hear from you. I know there’s someone out there who will be a perfect fit for our team. I really hope it’s you, and I appreciate your help in patience while we figure that out together. Thanks!

David Barrett

Founder and CEO of Expensify

Follow us at http://twitter.com/expensify

Personal blog: http://quinthar.com

Company blog: http://blog.expensify.com

Recent coverage:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/16/expensify-expense-reports/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/28/outright-com-leaves-beta-adds-new-partners-to-streamline-small-business-accounting/

http://gigaom.com/2009/09/14/where-do-your-biz-bucks-go-expensify-outright-team-up-to-find-out/

http://blogs.salesforce.com/the_appexchange_blog/2009/08/app-of-the-week-expensify.html

http://venturebeat.com/2009/08/12/expensify-raises-1m-for-online-expense-reporting/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/11/expensifys-free-expense-report-system-takes-the-hassle-out-of-reimbursements/

Tax season is fast approaching and the Chicago Tribune has posted an interesting list of some oft overlooked tax deductions which many people may qualify for.

Expensify is all about making your life simpler, including the burden of taxes. A good example of this comes from #5 on the Chicago Tribune list: a mileage and toll deduction for a move related to a new job. While it may be too late to do so for 2009, start the new year off right; set up a mileage relocation unit in Expensify:

• Log in, click on “settings” in the upper right.
• Scroll to “Customize your units,” and click “[add new unit]“
• Give the new unit a name, I used “relocation mileage,” and a value, which in this case would be $0.24

Moving for work?   Create a new expense report, and log an expense for “relocation mileage” (or whichever name you give to the unit) as the number of miles you’ve traveled for your new work.  It will automatically be converted in to the reimbursable rate for the miles you’ve traveled.  Make sure to import all receipts for gas and tolls, or, if you paid with cash, snap a picture of the receipts with our mobile app and add them to your expense report.  Come end of the year, expense reports like these will help you maximize deductions on your taxes.

Get 2010 started right; start logging expenses early to get the most available deductions at the end of the year.